The Piper
by Kelllie
Summary: The tale of how Ornon lost his sheep.  Written for the Queensthief fic fairy tale contest.


_Title: The Piper_

_Author: Kelllie_

_Word Count: 3700 or thereabouts_

_Rating: G_

_Summary: How Ornon lost his sheep._

_Disclaimer: Not mine. MWT owns the characters, the underlying story, the brilliance, etc. and so forth. I merely borrow the characters from time to time (with neither malicious nor pecuniary intent)_

**The Piper**

Long ago in a far off corner of the world, there was a little wooded country nestled between the summits of the Sacred Mountains. Its towns and villages were hidden in the clouds – and happy to be so – far from the prying eyes and greedy reach of the countries which prowled below. It was a fickle land, kindly in the summer when lush pastures folded along the edges of endless hopes and endless skies; but barren as a bone and shrouded in white in the dead of winter. Living in such a fickle land, some folk grew fickle, too; ever generous with their neighbors when faced with a certainty of plenty, some grew miserly when times turned bad.

It was during one bitter winter when times grew bleak indeed for the little country in the mountains, for the rats had come to Eddis.

They were not entirely to blame. The rats, that is. As a rule, Eddisian rats kept to the woods and were loathe to set whisker into any house or barn. Keen-witted, they held a healthy respect for the tall folk and their things – especially the sharp, pointy things upon which the humans seemed so fond of spitting them. But the harvests had failed, and the ground had grown hard as stone, leaving little in the frosted fields to forage. Needless to say, they had their pups to think about.

So they nosed into the towns and villages, carefully, quietly. Under cloak of night, they were nothing but sleek shadows darting into crack and cranny and crevice. And with each paw step, they brought fear and panic.

But not to all.

"Perhaps they will leave of their own accord if you leave them be," the Queen said, patiently.

"Begging your Majesty's pardon, but they will not. A plague of vermin is what they are. The filthy thieves sneak into my barn by night and fill themselves to bursting with my grain."

The Queen of Eddis pondered the wealthy man before her. Ornon was his name. He had blustered into her morning court session and demanded a royal audience, which she had granted reluctantly, seeing the desperation in his eyes. The rats had been visiting the capital city for over a fortnight, though they had thankfully stayed clear of the temples and royal palace. Many of her subjects had been to her throne to ask for help, only to return a day later to report the rats had already moved on. As the Queen had looked into the gaunt faces of her countrymen, with their rail-thin children huddled behind, she suspected the rats had left because there was so little to eat in the homes they raided. The rats weren't the only ones starving in Eddis.

"Stealing from the mouths of my sheep, they are!"

Your sheep, thought the Queen, are the least of my worries. As Ornon rambled on, it became clear to the Queen that the famine of food and plague of rats had been of no concern to Ornon until it had touched upon his sheep and he had realized that his wealth could not protect them.

"Something must be done, your Majesty."

"What do you propose, Ornon?" she asked, wearily.

"We hire a rat catcher. That's what we do."

The Queen heard a snort from the corner of the small receiving room where members of her court had gathered discretely to watch. Raising herself on her throne, she scanned the small crowd and noted, with displeasure, that her Thief was smirking. She caught his eye and he quickly ducked his head and slipped behind the minister of trade.

"A rat catcher?" the Queen said, returning her gaze to Ornon. "We'd need an army of rat catchers to rid the whole country. And how would you propose we pay for this? We've little enough in the royal treasury as it is and months to go before the trade routes open."

Ornon smiled shrewdly, like a cat with a vole. "A tax, your Majesty."

"A tax?" said the Queen, raising her hand to quiet the murmurs of disapproval rising from her ministers. "A tax of what, Ornon?"

"Sheep."

At this, several members of her court laughed outright.

"Just one per farmhold, your Majesty… enough to barter a rat catcher's fee."

"Idiot," said a voice from the crowd. "Hasn't he been to the commons lately?"

The Queen looked to the minister of trade who, seeing the royal gaze directed his way, widened his eyes and shook his head in an unmistakable, 'It wasn't me who spoke' expression. The Queen caught a glimpse of her Thief's dark head behind him and she motioned for the minister of trade to step aside. He did so, but as he sidled to his left, the Thief artfully followed his every move and remained concealed. The Queen narrowed her eyes, and the minister of war briskly crossed the room, caught the Thief's arm and pulled him out to face the Queen.

Exposed, Eugenides threw back his head and stared at Ornon with a glint in his eye. "I'm only saying what everyone else is thinking."

The Queen bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. It was true. The commons were the public grazing grounds shared by nearly all of Eddis's shepherds. They comprised the meadows and pastures that ringed the royal palace and the lower reaches of the Sacred Mountains. Normally dotted with great tufts of wooly white in winter, the pastures had grown bare. One by one, hundreds of sheep had disappeared. Most were assumed to have run off, half-starved, searching for better forage; still others were feared taken by wolves.

Ornon was a landowner in his own right, the Queen recalled, and thus had no need of the commons. Warm springs and stands of timber bordered his private pasture and sheltered his sheep even as the grip of winter tightened. Still, how could he have failed to notice the plight of his fellow shepherds?

"He's either an idiot or he thinks you to be one, your Majesty. You can't seriously be considering-"

"I'm not. I will suffer no tax," said the Queen, "but neither will I suffer you to insult my loyal subjects." She lifted her chin and stared down her nose at her Thief.

Eugenides met the Queen's gaze unflinchingly, and then he frowned and bowed his head.

"Goodness me," said Ornon, acidly, "chastised by the black sheep of the royal family—"

"Is not the wool of a black sheep just as warm?" Eugenides said, smoothly.

"I wouldn't know. Perhaps you would like to visit my sheep and ask. I could arrange a meeting… whenever your demanding royal duties allow, of course."

"How about never. Does never work for you?"

"Or better yet," said Ornon, turning his back on Eugenides and addressing the Queen, "perhaps the Thief's talents would be better spent stealing the rats from my barn—"

"Ha!" Eugenides scoffed. "Next time you make an offering to the gods, ask for a better sense of humor."

"—Unless," Ornon continued, coolly, "that would be considered a professional discourtesy… from one thief to another?"

The gibe hung in the air, heavily, and the room grew deathly still.

"Enough. The both of you," snapped the Queen. She closed her eyes and rubbed at the dull headache growing behind her temples. Ornon was treading on perilous ground by sparring with her Thief.

"No harm done, your Majesty," said Ornon. "See how he smiles?"

"He smiles," said the Queen slowly and deliberately, "because he enjoys being insulted. It means he doesn't have to play nice anymore." She sighed heavily.

"How petty you believe me to be, my Queen," said Eugenides, with mock offense. "I'm wounded."

"You will be," said the Queen with a look of warning.

Eugenides gave a huffy sigh. "If you must know, I smile because I accept the challenge. I will, as Ornon so artfully put it, 'steal the rats from his barn.'" His smile broadened to a grin. "For a price, of course."

"And that would be…?" said Ornon. His tone suggested that Eugenides would have nothing reasonable to add.

"Merely a double weight in silver."

The tension in the receiving room dissolved in an instant and Ornon threw back his head in a bray of laughter. "A double weight in silver? I'd pay you fifty times as much to rid my barn of rats."

"We have an accord, then… witnessed by the Queen, no less, and her court," said Eugenides, slyly.

"An accord," said Ornon, reaching to shake Eugenides's hand, "which you will no doubt breach. I expect the court will hear my petition for damages before the week is out."

The Thief gave no response, other than to smile again - this time even more broadly, if possible, than before.

The Queen merely shook her head in dismay.

. . . . .

Three days passed. Three long days.

Each night, well after the moon had risen, Ornon made the long trek from his house to his barn. Each night he would hear the scuffling and squeaks of a multitude of rank beasts, echoing off the walls and grain bins, magnifying the sounds. Each night he would trudge back to his bed, chilled to the bone and cursing the Thief with every step.

At the break of dawn on the fourth day, Ornon approached his farmhand as he led the flock from the barn to the sheltered pasture. "Tell me Alphreas, has the Thief been to the barn yet? I've not seen hide nor hair of him."

"Aye, sir. He visits the barn at sundown, before the rats appear," said Alphreas, silently counting the sheep as they moved through the gate, and nodding when all were accounted for. "He brings with him a pipe, he does."

"A pipe? I'll have his scalp if he burns down my barn with his pipeweed."

"No, sir. A pipe." Alphreas whistled and fluttered his fingers. "For tootling, sir."

Ornon looked blankly at Alphreas. The frosty air turned his breath to wispy clouds that hovered about his face. He waved his hand before his eyes, as if doing so would also clear his mind. "Tootling?"

"Aye. When I bring the sheep in for their grain every evening, he sits on the edge of the bins and tootles while they eat."

With an effort, Ornon closed his gaping mouth. "He plays music?"

"Not quite, sir. Nursery tunes, or thereabouts if he'd an ear for music. Which he doesn't." Alphreas gently shooed the last of the sheep through the gate and secured the latch. "The sheep seem to like it, though. When they hear the first notes of his pipe, they come running… er… waddling is more like it. Fat as they are."

And the rats still infest my grain, thought Ornon. Fat rats.

That afternoon, as the sun began to set, Ornon concealed himself behind a stack of stall rails in his barn and watched. Sure enough, the Thief arrived shortly thereafter, bundled heavily against the chill air. Before the sheep entered the barn, he pulled out a pipe from his breast pocket and began to play.

As the first notes filled the air, Ornon realized, with distaste, that it was a sound akin to fingernails on slate.

As he continued to play, the thief wandered among the grain stores and peeked inside the bins. Perhaps he was trying to drive the rats away with noise, thought Ornon. The Thief blew a long, annoying note then stopped. He scooped a hand into the grain and watched as the stream of kernels flowed between his fingers and back into the bin.

"Is this barley, Ornon?"

Ornon jumped in his place and bumped his forehead against a splintery rail.

"You can come out from your hiding spot, unless you prefer standing ankle deep in manure."

Ornon rubbed at his forehead and stepped out into the open. He scanned the troughs and water buckets, his eyes skipping across the floor of the barn frantically, and then lamely said, "Ah. Here it is." He reached down to grasp a pitchfork. "I was just looking for… " He was spared any further explanation by the arrival of Alphreas and the sheep.

Eugenides immediately put the pipe to his lips and began to play. At the sound, the sheep turned toward him and began to bleat eagerly until Alphreas poured great scoops of grain into their feed troughs. For long moments, all Ornon heard was the sound of countless sheep crunching grain, and the shrill counterpoint of the Thief's pipe. It set his teeth on edge.

As the last of the sheep ate his fill, the Thief put down his pipe.

"Your sheep bear no marks… no brands."

"Hmmmm?" said, Ornon. His ears were still ringing.

"The sheep on the commons… they all carry the marks of their owners. Rather, they did before they began to disappear. Are you so confident of your sheep never straying?"

"Why would they stray?" said Ornon, coolly. "They're the best fed sheep in the country."

Eugenides shrugged, then thought for a moment. "Tell me, Alphreas," he said, "when was the last time your family dined on barley?"

"Barley, sir? Long before mid-winter. Feast day…. I'd say." Alphreas looked quickly at Ornon, then away. "We only received a two bushel ration."

"Two bushels? And how much of that went to your livestock?"

"None, sir. It went into the mouths of my children. Our chickens and goats went without."

Eugenides raised his eyebrows and turned to face Ornon, expectantly.

Ornon drew back and harrumphed. "Alphreas, I pay you well enough to meet your needs, do I not?"

"Yes, sir. Certainly, sir."

"I treat you fairly? Honestly? You've no complaints?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

Ornon looked back at Eugenides with a satisfied air.

"The harvest failed, Ornon. There is no barley to be found. Except here."

Ornon drew in a deep breath and looked into the middle distance for a long moment. Then he roused himself and began to search through a pile of burlap sacks. Taking one, he filled it to bursting with grain and thrust it toward Alphreas. "Take this."

"No, sir. I couldn't."

Ornon persisted in holding the sack out, and it leaked precious kernels as Alphreas hesitated. Eugenides couldn't help but notice that Ornon had filled the smallest of the sacks available.

"Take it, Alphreas," said Eugenides. "He'll not make the offer again. Trust me."

Ornon shot the Thief a filthy look, but Eugenides looked pleasantly at Alphreas and said, gently, "Take the grain." After several strained seconds, Alphreas relented and took the sack.

"Thank you, sir," he said humbly.

Ornon smiled in a patronizing manner, then he turned on the Thief. "And you… " he hissed, "I expect YOU to rid my barn of rats as agreed." He picked up the pitchfork and flung it toward the Thief's feet. It stuck into the floorboards mere inches from the Eugenides's boots. "It's nightfall. Get to work. Spear them if you must."

As Ornon stormed out of the barn, and into the frosty twilight, he was accompanied by a crescendo of exceptionally obnoxious and foul notes from the Thief's pipe.

. . . . .

Later that night, after the moon was high in the sky, Ornon once again crunched over the icy ground to his barn. He stole past the sheep in their paddock and, as soundlessly as possible, opened the barn doors and slipped inside. As his eyes adjusted to the moonless gloom, he listened.

And listened.

No scuffling. No squeaks. No sounds at all.

He broke into a grin and then he laughed outright. Could it be possible? Were the rats gone?

The sound that followed stole the laughter from his lips. It was a low, steady tone.

From a pipe.

A light flared as the Thief struck a match and lit a small lantern. His face was eerily lit from below. "Hello, Ornon," he said, in sinister tones, "I'll have my pay, if you please."

"We'll see about that," said Ornon. He stalked across the barn and snatched up the lantern. Casting its light in the far corners of the barn, he found nothing, save an old barn owl who hooted indignantly at being disturbed.

"You'll find no rats. I'm quite certain."

Ornon shuttered the lantern and stepped carefully to the grain bins. After waiting several seconds, he raised the wick and – in an apparent attempt to catch the rats by surprise – cast the light into the bins. He was not prepared for what he found.

"Oh… dear… gods." Ornon felt faint and sick. He reached a hand out to steady himself.

The bins were empty. Not a single kernel remained.

"My pay, if you please," repeated Eugenides.

"You've stolen my GRAIN!" Ornon boomed.

"Actually, I've removed your rats. They only came for the grain."

"I want my grain returned… before the morrow!"

"I want my pay."

They stood, nose-to-nose, toe-to-toe, neither giving an inch.

"Before the morrow," said Ornon. "Or else…"

"Or else what? You gave your word before the Queen and her court. The terms of our accord said nothing about your grain."

Ornon ground his teeth. "This isn't over," he growled.

"You're quite right. I haven't received my pay."

Ornon turned on his heel and stormed out of the barn. "You've received payment enough!" he shouted over his shoulder.

Behind his back, the Thief slowly smiled.

. . . . .

Ornon stirred fitfully in his sleep that night, his dreams punctuated by visions of rats scrabbling and clawing at his feet and the sounds of sheep bleating to the strains of a soft, lilting pipe. As he drifted awake in the predawn haze, he heard a voice loudly calling his name. He jolted upright and stumbled down the stairs to his front door, still in his small clothes.

"They're gone, master. Every last one of them," said Alphreas, wide-eyed and breathless.

Ornon's hand went to his chest, and he breathed a great sigh of relief. "Yes, I know. Of course they're gone. That filthy Thief stole my grain."

"No, sir," Alphreas said, slowly. "The sheep."

Ornon ran out to the paddock, his heart beating out of his chest and his bare feet smarting and burning with cold.

The paddock was empty and the gate was wide open.

Behind him, Ornon heard a moan of disbelief. He turned and saw Alphreas pointing across the pasture, across the forested woods, to the meadowlands that rose above the palace.

The commons.

Fat white lumps dotted the public pastures once again. Distinctly sheep-like lumps.

"The gods damn him!"

Within the hour, Ornon had dressed, mounted a horse and raced over the fields and through the forests to the commons. As he drew near, he heard sounds of rejoicing and voices raised in thankful prayer. The faces he passed were smiling and jubilant, some with tears of joy streaming down. Scores of children were laughing, clasping hands and dancing circles around the bewildered sheep. "They've come home," they called. "And look at them! All so fat!"

They were undeniably his sheep, Ornon realized. But now, each one bore the distinctive mark of another shepherd.

He dismounted his horse, shaken, and stared dazedly at the scene before him. Gradually, the high trilling notes of a pipe drifted down to his ears. Ornon stiffened and looked up. In the tree above him, Eugenides lounged on a branch, grinning wickedly.

Ornon clenched his fists and began to work himself up to a suitable retort, but before he could open his mouth, an old shepherd approached with tears in his eyes. "Thank you, kind sir," he said, grasping Ornon's hand.

Ornon heard the Thief gag, as if ill.

"We know what you done," the old shepherd continued, "and may the gods bless you for it."

Ornon sputtered a response, and was shocked to see more villagers approach, reaching out to touch his arms and hands, uttering words of praise and gratitude. Ornon began to panic, his feet backing away from the crowd of their own accord, but before he could gather any distance he heard the sound of many hooves approaching.

"The Queen!"

The villagers scattered to watch the royal procession, and a pipe fell from the tree and glanced off Ornon's head. Ornon looked up.

The Thief was gone.

"A day for miracles, no less," the Queen said, as she regally steered her mount toward Ornon and stopped. "Bushels of grain appear outside the temple. Lost sheep return to the commons. And my Thief flees from my presence like a startled hare."

The Queen scowled and blew out a long breath through her nose.

"Your grain will be returned, Ornon. As will your sheep."

Ornon shook his head, slowly. "No, your Majesty."

"Ornon?" The Queen drew her brows together and tilted her head to the side.

"Please see to it that the poorest farmholds go home with a share of my sheep today. It may not quite equal what they've lost, but it will be enough to shear come springtime and keep their coffers full."

The Queen stared at Ornon intently, as if seeing him through new eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Quite. And the grain, too."

The Queen nodded, and slowly beamed at him. Ornon smiled back, basking in the warmth of the Queen's approval.

"Rest assured, Ornon, your generosity will be rewarded. I never realized you had a gift for diplomacy."

"Oh. I don't, your Majesty."

The Queen nodded to her attendants. "I'll be the judge of that. Come, Ornon. Warm yourself with breakfast at my table. It's bitterly cold out here."

"Is it?" Ornon said, genuinely. "I hadn't noticed."

And though the winter continued it's bleak course through the little country nestled in the sky, the hearts of the gentle folk who lived there were warmed by the generosity of a single man. The tale of Ornon and his sheep grew to legendary proportions and spread throughout the land, gaining him – much to the Thief's chagrin – the love and respect of his Queen and countrymen. But the real tale – the tale of the Piper and the rats – remained hidden in the clouds.

Until now.


End file.
